As I start to head into my late 20s, I realise that I'm only three years younger than the Man of Steel Superman. Join me as I chronicle and review his life.

Friday, 14 October 2011

Goodbye, Hello: Part 2

Welcome back to the list of things I will and won’t miss
about Superman in the New 52. After last week’s looks at the various origins
for Superman, this week, I’ll be focusing on two important parts of Superman’s
extended family.

The Second Thing
I’m Going To Miss About Superman In The New 52:

Ma and Pa Kent

I’ve never really understood why Superman needs to have lost
one or both of his parents. My first introduction to Superman’s parents was
through the series Lois and Clark (or The New Adventures of Superman, as it was
titled in the UK). Whilst there was a large element of comic relief to their
role in the series, they were a valuable part of Superman’s support network.
They provided Clark with a refuge from Metropolis and being Superman.

When I first discovered that the Kents were not
traditionally a huge part of Superman’s adult life, I couldn’t understand it.
Having a place to go home to seemed so important, and having the Ma and Pa
still alive gave Superman a reason to go home to Smallville regularly, allowing
for greater variety in Superman’s life and his adventures.

They also added another emotional string to the books. In
Superman #75, the page that tugs most on the heartstrings is the one showing Ma
and Pa watching Superman in the final throes of his fight with Doomsday, unable
to be with their son. It was a very small and human moment amongst the bombast
and destruction.

In the back of the recent Action Comics #2, a reference was
made to Superman being free from his parents as a reason for his hard-edged
campaigns in Metropolis early on in his career. Whilst I’m sure this will lead
to some interesting stories, I can only think of how this goes against
everything we’ve read in the last 25 years, about a Superman whose loving
parents helped him to learn to control his powers and to respect life above all
else.

The Second Thing
I’m Not Going To Miss About Superman In The New 52

Supergirl

(The Kara Zor-El incarnation.)

Supergirl was a mess. Introduced in a best-selling arc in
Superman/Batman, the character’s solo title launched a few months before
Infinite Crisis, and boy, it was not good. With Superman fans already upset at
the cancellation of the Peter David-written Supergirl series to make way for a
confusing and character-less plot device that bore almost no resemblance to
anything that could have taken the name ‘Supergirl’ (Yes, Cir-El, I’m looking
at you), DC then spectacularly dropped the ball by being unable to provide a
purpose or direction for her across well over three years of books.

Was she an assassin sent from Krypton to kill Superman? A
misguided super-powered teenager trying to cope with an entirely new society?
What about being a hero-within-a-hero, protecting the bottle city of Kandor?
No? OK, we can try Supergirl as a legend of the 21st century
marooned in the 31st? (Actually, Supergirl and the Legion of
Super-Heroes was pretty damn good, one of the best uses of the One Year Later
device. It was so good that it was barely mentioned again in Supergirl’s core
title). What exactly was Superman’s relationship with her? Protecting uncle,
concerned elder, or just plain embarrassed by this inconsistent, rebellious
teen that burst out from a ship contained in a lump of kryptonite? Constantly
rotating creative teams, barely hanging around for an entire story arc didn’t
help either.

It wasn’t until Sterling Gates arrived on the book that
Supergirl actually had something approaching a status quo, a supporting cast
and a character. Taking underused elements of Superman’s supporting cast and
using them to create a cast for Supergirl was a great move (yes, even Cat
Grant, as the explanation for her behaviour, when it came, worked well).
Supergirl also had a consistent relationship with Superman and, even better, a
relationship-of-sorts with Lois. Best of all, Gates laid to one side the ‘dark
Supergirl’ plots and worked hard to bring Supergirl into direct continuity with
the core Superman books, continuing in this vein after New Krypton had ended.

Of course, as soon as he was gone, this was all undone. We
were back to the rotating creative teams, and in Justice League of America, the
dark Supergirl was back.

Supergirl #1 was too much of a setup issue to see which way
the new creative team will take the character. I know I never want to see
Supergirl in a black costume again, and I don’t want to see a character who is
as painfully naïve as she was when she decided she was going to cure cancer. I
want to see a strong but flawed character who not only justifies her own
existence beyond ‘hey, we need to have Supergirl around’ but also who affects
Superman. If the relaunched title can deliver this, then I see no reason why
Kara Zor-El can’t become as strong a character as Matrix/Linda was in her own
title.

Next on World of
Superman: A change to our next issue, thanks to an editorial snafu (read: I
counted wrong). Instead of seeing Superman fight a giant mummy, we’ll be
meeting Jerry White, Jose Garcia and Bibbo Bibbowski for the first time!
Hurrah! And next week, we’ll be back for the third instalment in this series of
articles. See you then!